Corporate Culture Drives Your Competitive Advantage
A recent study conducted by Culture IQ surveyed 500+ HR professionals across a wide spectrum of industries and locations and found that “73% of the respondents believe that corporate culture drives competitive advantage for their company… “
As stated in earlier blogs (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/corporate-social-responsibility-part-ii-tools-csr-program-russell ; https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/development-workplace-ethics-businesses-social-mike-russell ), the last few years have ushered in a new era of corporate and social responsibility; corporate and nonprofit industries are experiencing this transformational shift in the culture expectations and attitudes of their young professionals, as well as their customers. Thus, there’s an increasing demand for workplaces that equally value and focus on people, planet, and profits and for leaders who understand that everything is interconnected.
As witnessed through working with dozens of high growth startups over the past two decades, the corporate culture gives the employees clear direction and expectations which drives results; it helps to transform the overall mission and vision created by leadership. Therefore, in the case of a startup and/or a turnaround effort, the first place to start is developing a corporate mission which is most often achieved via a corporate workshop/retreat.
Ideally, you want to engage a third-party (i.e. an HR or OD Consultant) and task with facilitating a discussion among the leaders/executive team to help ensure that a healthy balance is achieved between all parties and that no one person is dictating what they feel the culture will be. It’s vital that you create a shared vision through the collaborative process. “Determine what behaviors and beliefs you value as a company, and have everyone live true to them. These behaviors and beliefs should be so essential to your core that you don’t even think of it as culture.” – Brittany Forsyth, VP of Human Relations, Shopify
“Managing culture is a continuous process – not a one-time event”, says Management Consultant, Educator and Author, Peter Drucker. Consequently, it’s an evolutionary process that starts with that initial executive session outlined above and then continues as you hire more staff, refine your product or service, draft your employee handbook and make changes to the environment or office space.
Once you’ve come up with the values and mission of your organization the next step is how to disseminate this information, as well as how to make it a real part of the organization. Some of the ways to do this are outlined below:
- Companywide meeting; bring everyone together at the same time in the same place. If that’s not feasible, consider such options as Skype. It’s important that time be set aside for this vitally important initiative to underscore its importance (and value) to the organization.
- In that meeting, it’s important that the President/CEO explain the process that was undertaken to develop the mission/values and then create some sort of fun roll out that engages the attendees. Obviously, the more engaged (or entertained) the staff are the greater the retention.
- In the rollout, be sure to underscore any/all aspects of your mission that addresses issues or corporate and social responsibility (i.e. using local contractors/vendors/suppliers or communicating any/all “Green” aspects).
- Distribute some sort of office supply, whether it’s a pen, a pad or a 4×4 card and emblazon the company’s mission and values on it.
- In partnership with your Webmaster, develop a creative and fun way to showcase your values and mission throughout your website, on all online sales transactions and in any follow-up correspondences.
- Design a plaque or print of the corporate values and mission and hang it in the entrance to the office.
- Find some sort of method for incorporating the values and mission in all sales and marketing information.
- In that meeting, it’s important that the President/CEO explain the process that was undertaken to develop the mission/values and then create some sort of fun roll out that engages the attendees. Obviously, the more engaged (or entertained) the staff are the greater the retention.
Competitive Advantage in your corporate culture requires culture assessment
One key method to measure the success of your culture, as well as whether you’re realizing your competitive advantage, is to undertake a regular culture assessment. In fact, according to the Culture IQ study, 55% of the respondents conduct employee engagement surveys on regular intervals and then, if necessary, make changes to improve and enhance along the way. In addition to a culture assessment, you can gain a better understanding of your culture through hosting employee (and customer) focus groups, observing employee behaviors, and collecting regular, systematic feedback. This helps to create a clear understanding regarding the best ways to leverage your strengths and uncover any key opportunities for improvement. Ultimately, this helps you focus on actions that will improve both the employee experience and business result.
However, there’s one potential obstacle that can derail all of your planning efforts and that’s not having the full support and involvement of senior management. This Consultant has worked with many executive teams that believe its HR’s responsibility to foster cultural enhancements, improve employee engagement and reduce turnover; what they fail to realize is that while HR can facilitate these changes/enhancements, they’re not empowered or able to make them part of the corporate culture without the leaders support.
As stated above, you need the executive team to foster the necessary attitudes, traits and values and consistently model them; otherwise, there can be no movement forward. Moreover, a total emersion of those traits and attitudes is necessary for each/every executive (and ALL the Leaders) such that they can recite them when/if asked. Without the Leaders modeling the appropriate behaviors each/every day there can be no progress.
With that premise (which, by the way, was validated in the Culture IQ survey), it’s evident that senior leaders are the primary drivers of culture. Conversely, a lack of leadership buy-in is the primary hindrance to promoting or strengthening your culture; thus, it’s the lack of leadership support that’s cited in the study as the primary reason organizations do not effectively or actively manage efforts to improve their culture.
With corporate culture proven to be a driver of organizational success and profitability, we must recognize that disconnects exist between awareness of the value and importance of culture; therefore, gaining (and, more importantly, sustaining) leadership’s role as a positive factor will not be a simple or easy hurdle to clear. Even with the empirical data supplied by studies such as Culture IQ, change for some leaders is not easy nor, in most cases, is it welcome. As a result, it’s up to the President or CEO to hold all of the leaders accountable to modeling the appropriate behaviors, traits, characteristics and values in order to achieve success.
In the last few years, corporate and nonprofit industries have begun to experience a transformational shift in culture expectations and attitudes of their young and emerging professionals. There is increasing demand for workplaces that equally value and focus on people, planet and profits and for leaders who understand that everything is interconnected.
If you need help in assessing your culture and/or how your culture can translate into a competitive advantage for your organization, don’t hesitate to contact Mike Russell. In the meantime, if you are interested in perusing more blogs and would like additional information on Mike’s background and qualifications, checks out the links below. I thank you for taking the time to view this blog!
Call me and let’s discuss: 773-807-8437
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Mike Russell is a seasoned professional with three decades of experience in the fields of HR and OD. In addition to having a career trajectory of HR Generalist to a VP within ten years, Mike also has a long and successful background as a Consultant/Business Partner to CEO’s, Presidents and Executive Directors in both the private and non-profit communities across a wide spectrum of industries.
As the sole-proprietor and owner of Organizational Development Solutions (ODS), Mike partners with business leaders committed to insulating their organization(s) from potential liability, increasing organizational effectiveness and adding shareholder value.
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